


Dear Father

by Hecatetheviolet



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Child Abandonment, Father-Daughter Relationship, Franz Kafka References, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Post-Anteiku Raid Arc (Tokyo Ghoul), Vignette, after Yoshimura's capture, an author's view of the world, dear father, eto centric, lack of father-daughter relationship, the 24th ward, the world is wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12958308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecatetheviolet/pseuds/Hecatetheviolet
Summary: You asked me recently why I maintain that I am afraid of you.





	Dear Father

**Author's Note:**

> Fear means many things, to a child.

Half of her was trapped in a Hemingway silence; the other half of herself – the one that had grown grotesque from swallowing her bitter rage for so, so long – roared for the blood that was rightfully hers. Another half of her gloated, gushing venom, viscerally satisfied by the sight of the one who had caused her so much grief and misfortune being brought low. Yet another fractional half, smaller than the others and brighter for it – _hurt_. If she were weaker she would have taken a step back from – from _him_ , from his words, from their meaning.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He had abandoned her; she was his victim. He was not supposed to speak to her like this.

She was a creature fundamentally composed of halves – and yet, every busy facet of herself – raging, screaming, crying, _begging things to have been changed in the past by the one responsible, before anything cruel could have happened to her_ – was brought to a sharp halt by the aged figure prostrate before her.

Her father seemed so small, in the flesh.

Rather than being satisfying, it felt dissonant to her – _this_ was the man who had thrown her into the depths of hell? _This_ was the man who had abandoned her – his only child – without a word? This man, who had created a coward’s space in the 20th ward, all but painted yellow with his own blood, _this_ was the man who had never spoken to her? **This** was the man who had taken up a mimic of her mask, her body, her power, to lead the CCG away from her? Without once sparing her a word? A praise for her own miraculous survival in the face of his abandonment? A condemnation of her violence? Her starving appetite? Her starving emotions?

_This was him?_

She had never known how to speak to him, even when she was young and desperate. She was the child, he the father – even if only in name. It was his choices that had shaped more of her life than she wanted to admit; it was his responsibility to her that was shrugged off. She had wanted his attention, once.

So she had waited. Made herself known. Became powerful, brilliant, burning.

And what had she gotten for it? A father’s silence.

Perhaps he had created Anteik for her. Maybe that wasn’t a lie. But to know, to truly _know_ , that her father had stood above her living a peaceful life while she suffered and starved in the great vast hell below him – _had put her there_ – and had still expected _her_ to come to _him_ -

She may have been a creature of halves, but she did not act in halves. Her response to this, to him, must be perfect. Where once she had wanted this, his acknowledgement, his attention, _him begging her for forgiveness_ – she had grown out of it. She was no longer a child. Not longer little Eto, a tiny girl chasing the love that so few ghoul children were afforded but for her was _right there_ -

She was Takatsuki Sen. Her own name. Her own person. She had footholds in both worlds and power divided unevenly – _for now_ – between them. This man – This man before her was no longer necessary. He was not the reason she wrote. He was not the reason she raged. He was not the reason she detested this wrong world. He was not the reason she lived.

It seemed that he had done one of the duties of a father and acted as a stepping stone for her, without even noticing it. If he’d known how powerful, how enraged she would become, would he have done the same? Or rather than abandonment, would he have never allowed her birth at all? What other choices would this silent, useless old man have made against her, were he able?

If it were her bowing and scraping to him, _what would he have done?_

Half of her, perhaps the human half, wanted to turn away from him. To stop having to see the silent, distant father she had kept out of her mind for so many years speaking to her, begging her to forgive him, _speaking to her_ –

She should turn silently away from him and abandon him, just as he had taught her by example.

Half of her, certainly the ghoul half – the one that raged and fought and consumed – allowed her another option. _He was weak._ That weakness would be punished was one of the formative lessons of her childhood.

He wanted forgiveness. He would act to receive it from her. He would allow her _anything_ to receive it.

That kind of weakness would soon be blotted out.

**Author's Note:**

> I am an unrepentant Eto sympathizer 100%. I understand her more that I want to, honestly. 
> 
> Shout out to Kafka: I'll pour out my last juice box for you, you depressed piece of fuck


End file.
